Managing Lean Culture in a Large Global Company with Dan Davis

In this episode, Dan Davis and I discuss what its like to manage a continuous improvement culture in a large global company. We talk about both successes and challenges of being in this role. Dan also provides the listeners with some tips and tricks to help other leaders develop their own CI culture.

What You'll Learn:

• What it's like to manage The Center of Excellence for Continuous Improvement for a large publicly traded company?
• What is the key in opening the door to CI culture?
• How are you generating small improvements?
• What's Dan's favorite topic to train people on in CI?
• What's Dan's favorite quote and why?

About the Guest:

Dan Davis has dedicated over 25 years of his career to supporting lean initiatives and developing CI culture at various companies. He is extremely passionate in teaching and simplifying concepts to help companies shift their culture to make it a place that it is everyone’s responsibility to improve.

Mr. Davis rejoined Xylem in 2021 and leads up the Continuous Improvement, Center of Excellence and is responsible for driving CI utilizing the Xylem Production System.

His key focus areas include driving the vision and roadmap for the Company’s CI culture while overseeing initiatives, implementing robust tools and measurement methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma, and leading Xylem toward best-in-class status in operations, commercial and transactional activities.

Prior to his current role Mr. Davis was responsible for the CI program at Watts Water Technology. He held several leadership roles at FMC Technologies, including CI Leader & Plant Manager. Prior to that, he served in a series of increasingly responsible leadership roles in the industrial businesses for the Stanley Black & Decker, Global CI Leader and Plant Manager Responsibility. At Tractor Supply Company, Mr. Davis was responsible for launching their CI Program (Tractor Value System).

Mr. Davis earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineer from Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Email: dan.davis@xylem.com